PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

The Barking Crab is a clam shack overlooking the water. That wouldn't be a big deal on the coast of Maine or the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, but in downtown Boston, it's beyond cool. A wooden building perched above Fort Point Channel (which separates downtown from South Boston), this extremely casual restaurant has a colorful interior, a lively bar scene, and a clientele of regulars from local offices and families visiting the nearby Children's Museum. The place to be in the summer is at a picnic table on the deck, which might require a wait for a table at busy times; in the off season, the indoor dining room, which has a cheery wood-burning stove, is a cozy oasis. The menu includes the usual clam chowder, fried-seafood plates, and lobsters, with a handful of more creative options (such as spicy fried calamari and a yummy crab-cake burger) and enough non-seafood dishes to keep vegetarians from starving. The food is fine, and overall quite good, but that's not really the point. This is a downtown clam shack -- what a concept.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Boston 2008, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Find Hotel Deals on Yahoo Travel»